


choose you

by friarlucas



Series: girl meets world band au [4]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/M, a getting together almost 2 years in the making, also i love them yeah whos askin, every time every way babe i choose YOU, fake songs that i wish were real so i could bop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 16:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17124494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friarlucas/pseuds/friarlucas
Summary: Forced to collaborate by their impatient friends, Lucas and Riley finally confront the tension that's been building between them ever since their last unexpected kiss. As it turns out, a brand new song may not be the only thing they discover in the process.





	choose you

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Ficmas, day 8! As promised, here is the RL band au fic some of y'all have been waiting literal years for. I hope it satisfies despite the wait, and I just want you all to know that I love them. But this we been knew.
> 
> Enjoy, and if you're celebrating Christmas in the next couple days then have a safe and happy holiday! :)

For as long as she can remember, Riley has always had a way with words.

She filled journals upon journals with them starting from the moment she could write coherent thoughts, now stuffed in a box under her bed and gathering dust. In middle school, she discovered a love of poetry and ran with it, spending her time not dedicated to her family and Maya in poetry club and slam tournaments. Her friends claimed she was the best person to talk to, always knowing the exact right thing to say. Never one to have an issue with communication, because with enough time she’d figure out which words to use eventually.

When Maya took off for Hollywood and Riley opted to take the grand journey into the industry with her, somewhere along the way those poems transformed into song lyrics. Now, she’s got a sizable amount of credits to her name (alias or otherwise) and even more profit than she knows what to do with, her best friend singing her words to thousands of screaming fans every other night.

There’s simply no arguing it—Riley Matthews has a way with words. They’re her strongest ally, her greatest weapon, her truest talent in this great wide world regardless of how tiny the microscope of the industry makes her feel from time to time.

And yet, sitting here with Lucas in the studio with an unwritten song hanging over their heads, she seems to have lost them altogether.

She can’t figure it out. Between the two of them, crafting a pick-up track for Mad Dogs’ latest album should be an easy task. Both of them have penned countless hits in the last few years, and each have their fair share of chart toppers. Riley can’t remember a time she’s ever had a completely empty idea bank when it comes to material.

Lucas is the most brilliant songwriter she’s ever met. Sure, he’s an excellent drummer and that’s what he’s so publicly known for in the context of Mad Dogs, but she feels as though no one ever gives him enough credit for writing every song the band has ever played. His portfolio as a lyricist is astounding, and she thinks by the time he’s done with the industry he’ll have given the likes of Carole King and Lennon-McCartney a run for their money.

Okay, so perhaps that’s a stretch—Carole King _is_ her inspiration, after all—but there’s no denying Lucas is one of the greats. He’s a lyrical wizard, crafting phrases and sentiments that make her heart melt and give her goosebumps when she hears them. He’s silently carrying the entire force of Mad Dogs on his back, making such an irreplaceable impact all while flying under the radar as the simple drummer boy. Slipping into the hearts of every listener without them even realizing it’s happening.

All this songwriting power between them, and half a week of work put into this stupid track.

Still, nothing.

To be fair, it’s pretty difficult to create a song together when you can’t even speak to one another.

Part of her resents Maya and Farkle for forcing them into this collaboration. Zay was the one who presented the idea, but she knows it was Farkle—she knows because of the way he’s been rolling his eyes and tossing her disdainful looks for the last month or so. As if Lucas’s writer’s block is her fault, as if locking the two of them in the studio for hours at a time will magically fix everything that’s gone to hell between them in the last few months.

Farkle’s a musical genius, but he doesn’t understand a thing about other human beings. And Maya’s just impatient, so she’ll do whatever it takes to get Riley out of her emotional funk.

Riley isn’t a psychologist, but she didn’t see forced interaction doing much to help tear down the wall that’s built up between her and Lucas. So far, she’s proving her own theory correct.

She’s not even upset with him. She never was, considering the whole kissing-and-running-away thing was her fault, but she has no clue where he stands. After the initial awkwardness of that night in the studio—the very studio they’re unfortunately stuck in right now and have been for the last few days like some kind of twisted reminder—it just became easier to avoid one another than have the conversation neither one of them wanted to have. The conversation where Lucas tells her he’s in love with someone else, his mystery muse, and she has to pretend like she doesn’t care. Like it was all a big misunderstanding.

It’s just so much simpler not to say anything at all.

She glances up from her useless notepad, eyeing Lucas. He’s given her reign of the couch and parked himself on the bean bag chair a few steps away, maintaining just enough distance between them to keep them comfortably awkward. He’s got his eyebrows knit together in concentration and is chewing his pen between his teeth, but even with the thoughtful expression on his face he isn’t doing a whole lot of a writing.

It scares her, how quickly people can change when you’re not looking. It’s only been a couple months since they had their unintentional falling out, yet he’s already shifting from the version of him she remembers so well. His hair is longer than usual, unkempt from the busy nature of the holiday season in the business. His tan from touring over the summer is fading, leaving his stray freckles more prominent in its place. His knuckles are still familiarly bandaged, but they’ve been changed recently. She knows that’s objectively a good thing—the healthy, proper way to take care of an injury that requires dressing—but it irks her that the usual blue adhesive is suddenly unfamiliarly beige. It doesn’t feel like him anymore.

In just a couple months, she feels as though she’s losing him. If she keeps this up, it won’t be long before it’s as if she doesn’t know him at all. Despite how much she ruined things between them, she can’t imagine losing him entirely. She won’t.

To get anywhere, though, she has to start by opening her mouth.

“Anything?”

Lucas jumps, so accustomed to the silence during their sessions that the very notion of someone speaking warrants a spook. He locks eyes with her, only breaking out of his surprise when he almost drops the pen from his mouth.

She can’t help but laugh, which in turn makes him smirk in spite of himself. An embarrassed smile, but a smile nonetheless. And eye contact. It’s a start.

And oh, how she’s suddenly realizing how she missed those green eyes.

“Uh, not really,” he says sheepishly, placing the pen neatly against the spiral binding of his notebook. He uses looking over his feeble notes as an excuse to avoid her gaze. “I did write a fuck you to Farkle, in case he decides to track our progress.”

Riley nods eagerly. “Cosign my name on that.”

“Ah, collaboration.” He takes a moment to jot a note down, presumably her approval on his unfriendly greeting. “How about you?”

She lets out some air through her lips, running a hand through her hair. “Well, no words. So no song. But I did draw a cat.”

Riley flips around her notepad so he can see her handiwork. He raises his eyebrows, a twinkle forming in his eyes as he attempts to hold back a smirk.

“Very confident.”

She grins, admiring her artwork once more before turning her beam back to him. It’s impossible for him not to mirror it, and there’s a distinct sense of relief in how natural it feels to be having this back and forth again. For things, if even for a moment, to feel as though they’re back to normal.

Then Lucas’s expression shifts, as if he’s remembering something. It doesn’t take Riley much to guess what exactly. Her memory drifts back to the last time they were together on the very couch she’s sitting on as Lucas tears his gaze away from her, swallowing and leaning back against the wall. Back to square one.

Whatever they’re doing now, it’s not working. For their work or their friendship.

“I don’t get it,” Lucas finally says, obviously frustrated. He tilts his head back, letting it rest against the drywall with a pointed _thud_. “We’ve both done this a million times before. I don’t get why it’s so hard for us to write all the sudden.”

Riley can’t believe that’s the truth. She thinks they both know the reason. It’s plain as day, after all. It’s just that neither of them have made an effort to talk about it, and untreated wounds only fester. It’s like the way the color of the coverings on Lucas’s fingers has to change—keeping things the way they are will only do more damage at the end of the day.

Imagining confronting the unspoken tension between them is daunting, but the prospect of the blisters in their relationship becoming permanent scars because they went untreated is far, far worse.

“I’m pretty sure I have an idea or two,” she finally exhales, sitting fully upright and shifting to face him rather than the drum set at the other end of the room.

When she gives him a look he holds it for half a second before the hesitancy returns, causing his eyes to flit away again. To anything else in the room but her. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, and I think you do too.”

Lucas swallows, twisting the spiral binding on his notebook fretfully between his fingers. Clearly not going to give her an answer either way.

She sighs, shifting her notepad off her lap and onto the couch next to her. “Come on, Lucas. We should talk about it.”

“We’ve done a pretty solid job of not doing it for this long,” he points out.

“Yes, maybe. But I don’t know if you noticed, but because of that we’ve done _no_ talking.” She waits for him to meet her eyes, frowning. Pushing herself to be as honest as possible. “And I don’t know about you, but I don’t like that. I hate not talking to you.”

There’s a moment of silence as the sentiment settles in the air between them. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Lucas sighs.

“Me too.”

Progress. The bandages are out, now they just have to go about patching them up the right way.

Riley allows herself a smile. “Actually, you’re one of my favorite people to talk to.”

It’s the truth. She can’t think of anyone whose conversation she enjoys more, and it’s incredible how often she finds herself wishing she could talk to him on any number of subjects. Part of this is friendship, she knows, and she shares it with all of her loved ones. But when she’s facing a particularly complicated decision, or struggling with a challenging day, or just wants to let it all out after making it through one of the longer ones, he’s always the first person she thinks of. And most of the time, there’s no one else she’d rather go to instead.

Case in point, the last few months of radio silence have been very, very dissatisfying.

The sentiment operates as intended, working to diffuse more of the tension that has built up between them. Lucas absorbs her words, tilting his head slightly away from her so maybe she won’t see the bashful smile that crosses his face. But she catches it, regardless of how quickly he conceals it away.

“So, let’s just get it over with,” Riley says with a sigh. She sits forward on the edge of the couch and plops her hands on her knees, the sound resounding in the studio like the declarative bang of a gavel. Getting ready to decide the fate of their relationship, for better or for worse. “Let’s talk about it. Starting with the kiss.”

“Yeah,” Lucas murmurs. “That.”

She wishes he wasn’t so difficult to read. Sometimes she feels like she can read him like an open book, and other times—like right now—he’s so good at hiding himself away it’s like she can’t find him at all. It’s annoying, particularly in the moments where she needs clarity to maintain her sanity. That, she supposes, is why all the fans love him anyway. That quiet, reserved sense of mystery.

Riley has never found him remotely mysterious—far more endearing and silly than whatever those girls are envisioning. But then, here she is desperately trying to figure him out, so what does she know?

“It was unexpected, definitely,” she starts, attempting to get the ball rolling. She feels a trained sense of panic thinking back to that night, to the moment the entire dynamic of their friendship shifted forever because she couldn’t keep her head on straight. Even still, the memory on its own without context isn’t the worst thing in the world. “It certainly wasn’t… bad.”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

Riley chews her lip, contemplative. After a moment, a small smile creeps onto her face. “Actually, I think it was pretty good.”

“No, yeah, for sure,” Lucas says agreeably. He’s acting nonchalant enough, but she can see the blush crawling up his cheeks and he’s doing an excellent job of avoiding her gaze. It only makes her smile harder. “I didn’t hate it.”

“Oh, well, that’s a relief.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

When they do finally lock eyes, the ridiculousness of the situation starts to really sink in. She cracks first, releasing a giggle that quickly escalates into embarrassed albeit relieved laughter.

When he joins in, it genuinely is a relief. She spent so many weeks tormented over how badly the kiss ruined things, how much damage it did, how much he must’ve hated it when as it turns out, none of the above is true.

She truly is her own worst enemy. And conversation does fix everything.

“Well, I’m glad we cleared that up,” she says when she’s worked through her giggles. She examines him for a long moment, admiring his laughter lines and the way his shoulders have relaxed. All that tension they carried into the room with them, seemingly gone with the wind. “And I’m sorry.”

Lucas tilts his head back against the wall again, adjusting to look at her. His expression is softer than before, and it’s a small treasure to see some of his usual fondness towards her back intact. “What on Earth are you sorry for?”

“I was the one that created this mess in the first place,” she clarifies. “First by kissing you, and then by not bothering to do anything to address it for, you know, six months.”

He frowns slightly. “That’s not just on you. That’s on me, too.”

“I know, but… there’s so much about the situation that I could’ve handled better. So I want you to know how sorry I am about that. Not to mention the sheer uncouthness of kissing someone without their consent.”

Lucas looks less than impressed by that addition. “Seriously, Riles. It was fine.”

“And then I think about how awkward it must have been for you,” she continues, feeling her long-held panic over the situation start to bubble up into word babble. “With not necessarily wanting it and not wanting to hurt my feelings and the fact that you already have a girl—,”

“I’m sorry,” Lucas interrupts, nearly snorting. “What?”

Riley’s turn to blush. She wrings her hands nervously in her lap, smiling so she doesn’t cringe at her own stupidity. “Please don’t make me say it.”

For what it’s worth, Lucas seems pretty genuinely lost. He squints at her. “No, I’m definitely going to need you to say it. My ‘girl’?”

Riley sighs, closing her eyes and hiding her head in her hands. She waits as long as she possibly can before making the situation any more awkward, then she meets his eyes once more.

“Your mystery muse,” she says sheepishly.

His reaction isn’t what she anticipated. He doesn’t seem upset, or indignant on behalf of his lover’s existence. In fact, it takes him a couple of moments to comprehend what she’s saying at all, and when the reality of her words finally does sink in, he slouches back into the bean bag chair and stares at the wall across from them. Oddly stunned, totally overwhelmed by just three simple words.

She figured the reminder would mean a lot to him. But she didn’t think he’d look quite so sick.

Lucas releases a long, drawn out sigh. “Oh, boy.”

“I’m so sorry,” she repeats, scrambling to alleviate any new tension she may have added to the situation. Lucas suddenly can’t seem to sit still, pushing himself up from the bean bag and launching into nervous pacing. “I knew you cared about this girl, I mean everybody knows, and I still just—I mean, I just did that without even considering that. Considering your feelings.”

“Riley, stop,” he says softly, rubbing his face. “Believe me, you have nothing to worry about.”

She gets to her feet, a little perturbed that he’s brushing off her apology so casually. “That’s definitely not true. It’s not within my rights to so fully disrespect your established feelings. Regardless of what I want—,”

“You don’t get what you’re saying.”

“Yes, I do. I know that you should be able to have feelings for whoever you have them for, and I’m not going to expect you to change those feelings. It was wrong of me to act on mine expecting things to be different, and without even knowing the true nature of them. And then with the knowledge that—,”

“Riley, please,” he pleads, clearly growing frustrated with her incessant need to grovel for forgiveness.

But she can’t help it. She’s always been a born people pleaser, and whatever life experiences shaped her most prominently seem to have given her a God-given gift for groveling. She just wants things to go back to normal between them—well, maybe that’s not what she _wants_ , exactly, but she’ll take that to an alternative of losing him over something so stupid. And if she has to apologize and apologize and make amends until she’s righted the wrongs, then she’ll do it without shame.

“You can say it’s not a big deal, but it is. I know it is.” She exhales, twisting her fingers so tightly they hurt before forcing herself to say the more difficult words. “You love this girl, I mean, it’s so clear that you do. So if you love her, the mystery muse, you should pursue that. And I’m gonna be happy for you. I’m gonna be fine. As long as you’re happy and we still get to be friends, in each other’s lives, that’s all I care about. So I’m sorry about the kiss. To you, and to the mystery—,”

“Riley, Jesus! You have to stop!” Lucas snaps, swiveling to face her and at his wits’ end. “You’re the mystery muse!”

Whether he meant to admit it or not, the declaration acts as the most effective way to get Riley to shut up. She instantly stops talking, the words rattling around in her brain and filling the empty space and silence between them so effortlessly it’s amazing how she suddenly can’t breathe.

Honestly, her brain can’t comprehend it at first. The notion isn’t processing. She… the mystery muse? Riley Matthews, goofy best friend and boring, unassuming second fiddle, Lucas Friar’s mystery muse?

Given the expression creeping onto his face, it’s plain to see he never intended to say it. His features shift from exasperated to shocked in the blink of an eye, and if she weren’t positive they were still in reality considering how hard her heart is pounding, she would have to wonder if time had frozen with how absolutely still he’s become. Like a rabbit suddenly facing down a terrifying new predator.

She has to break the silence. She has to say something. But all she can manage is something that sounds like a cough.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” Lucas blinks, regaining the ability to move again. He moves in one direction before second guessing himself, whipping around and moving as far away from her as possible. “I didn’t—nothing. What were we talking about again?”

Riley stares at him, jaw still hanging half open. “I’m the mystery muse?”

He laughs nervously, but it comes out more like a wheeze. He compulsively scratches at his arm, shrugging and spinning away. “That’s not—I’m suddenly starving. Are you hungry? We should order a pizza or something—,”

“Lucas,” she says blankly, watching as he retreats behind the drum kit. When he refuses to acknowledge her, she takes the moment of silence to try understanding the full weight of his confession in the hopes that her brain will actually accept it.

All those beautiful words, phrases, and sentiments. Record-breaking hits, lyrics that conveyed emotion so distinctly and vividly that Riley felt as though she was experiencing them herself every time she put them on. Words about a girl that every single desperate fan wanted to be, the kind of love so many people dream of having—even herself, if she’s being honest.

She’s the mystery muse. Thousands of listeners singing along, and he was only thinking of her.

“We should really get back to working on this song,” Lucas stammers, desperately searching for a way to change the subject. He darts around the drums and scrambles to pick up his notebook, pulling the pen from the binding and tapping it fretfully against the cover. “What kind of song are we thinking?”

It’s impressive how even in his most panicked state, his rhythm is still impeccable. The beat of the pen tapping is almost enough to distract her, but her own internal world view crumbling is strong enough to maintain her attention. “Lucas.”

“It’s been a while since the band has done something upbeat. Well, since we’ve done anything. Because that’s why we’re stuck in here, writing a song for a band that may not even continue to _be._ Well, now that’s a downer thought—,”

“Lucas, please,” Riley says, stepping towards him and holding up a hand to halt his rapid-fire ranting. He does so, shuffling anxiously before managing to meet her eyes. “Please, no more avoidance. Just talk to me.”

Silence commands the space for a few painful moments. Then, reluctantly, Lucas nods.

Riley treads carefully, knowing they’re broaching sensitive territory. Dancing around feelings, feelings they’ve potentially had for one another for quite some time, yet never rose to the surface at the right place or right time to manifest into something known. Something understood.

Now, she wants to understand.

“What you said before… is it true?”

Another painful silence. After what feels like an eternity, Lucas nods.

The pen persists in its nervous tapping. Riley counts the beat in her head, trying to keep her emotions under control. She’s always liked surprises, but this one is loaded and completely unexpected and has to be handled with care. She doesn’t want to do anything that will mess this up.

“It’s me.” She exhales. “I’m the mystery muse?”

Tap. Tap. Tap. Slowly, the pen comes to a stop.

Lucas meets her eyes again. A strange combination of shyness and affection coloring his features. Like her knowing the truth is the worst possible thing that could happen, but God does he want her to hear it. Wanting to understand it too.

Finally, he nods. Confirming the impossible.

She can feel the truth of it slowly beginning to sink in, starting to change her perception of basically everything. Their friendship, how simple everything is, the way he looks at her—truthfully, the way he’s always looked at her.

The longer she thinks about it, replays their entire history through her mind, she can only form one coherent thought.

“How did I not know?”

“You weren’t supposed to know,” Lucas says, exhaling so pointedly it sounds as though he may pass out. She figures it must be exhausting, carrying around a secret that intense for so long. “I didn’t want anybody to know. Ever. But then my songwriting started slacking, and Farkle’s got that on radar like a hawk so he got all in my business about whatever was occupying my mind so much.”

Her. She was what was occupying his mind so much. It doesn’t make any sense.

“It was you. You were all I could think about—not in like, a creepy way, just—when I wasn’t thinking about how much I liked being around you, how great it is to be your friend and talk with you and just… have you in my life, I was obsessing over how fucked up the whole situation was. Because, you know, my brain is all sorts of chaotic and then there was—,”

“Charlie,” Riley breathes, filling in the blanks. Starting to piece together how this whole situation unraveled.

“Charlie,” Lucas confirms. “And that just made it worse because what kind of jackass ends up falling for their bandmate’s girl? Regardless of when the feelings developed. I mean, lots of bandmates do actually, but that’s not the point. So then Farkle was going on and on about how that was the perfect fodder for writing, how I was being an idiot for repressing all of the potential lyrical gold rather than putting it on paper. And I guess he was right, because suddenly it’s this huge thing. The mystery muse.”

If that isn’t the truth. Riley admittedly spent many hours of her own time over the years following the media stories, analyzing the lyrics, trying to get even an inkling towards who he was writing such passionate music for. It was more out of indignant curiosity that one of her dearest friends could have someone so important to him that she knew nothing about—she likes to be invested in her friend’s lives—but as it turns out the reason she couldn’t ever figure it out was because she was searching in all the wrong places. Thinking about all the important people in his life, always instinctively skipping over herself. Forgetting that she was even a contender.

God, she is so oblivious.

“And then it just got even worse, because then I really couldn’t ever tell you. I mean, how embarrassing is that? But I couldn’t tell the media anything else, because everything was inevitable going to get twisted out of context. I mean, think about how many people were convinced I was with Maya!”

Riley included. She shakes her head, closing her eyes and fully catching up to reality. This new reality both of them have stepped into, where there are no more secrets but she’s not sure what else has changed in the meantime.

“And then even when you and Charlie broke up, and when we—,” he trails off, searching for words. He’s lost track of his own thoughts, so jumbled and overwhelmed that he can’t keep them straight. “I didn’t know where you were at with everything. And I never wanted to cause any more drama or put anything at risk that you and I have, because you’re way too important to me. And then when that kiss went so wrong it was just like—,”

“Yeah.” Riley nods, knowing exactly what he’s attempting to explain. Having felt the torment of it plenty for herself. “Yeah.”

He sighs again, allowing the silence to settle over them. Both of them processing, no longer concerned with the progression of their unwritten duet but far more preoccupied with the progression of their friendship. Wondering where the hell they’re supposed to go next.

Gazing at him, staring at the floor and twirling the pen in his fingers nervously like a drumstick, she feels another familiar pang of affection ring through her chest. Sure, everything about how she perceives the world has changed in the last hour or so, but what she knows is exactly the same is how she feels about him. How she’s felt about him for so long, whether she let herself acknowledge it or not.

How scary and yet wonderfully freeing to know he must have been feeling the exact same things.

“Me,” she repeats, voice barely above a murmur. She just wants to get confirmation, wants to know with absolutely certainty how things stand before she makes another stupid decision that will inevitably send them through another round of game-changing. “It’s me.”

Lucas locks eyes with her, really taking her in. He shakes his head wordlessly, a coveted wordsmith left with absolutely nothing to say.

Then, he sighs, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“It’s always been you, Riley.”

She feels her heart skip a beat. Ready to jump into the next moment, to fall headfirst into what her useless brain is screaming at her to do with just as little forethought as the first time. Only this time, there’s context. This time, there’s understanding.

This time, she knows it’s always been him, too.

It doesn’t take her long to close the short distance between them. In the instant it takes him to lift his eyes to meet hers, she cups his face in her hands and pulls him down to kiss her.

The notepad and pen hit the floor at their feet. She doesn’t care. All she cares about in that moment is that there’s clarity. The dust has settled, she’s finally figured him out, and in seconds he’s pulling her closer and kissing her back and it’s like the entire universe clicks into place. Finally, she can think again. The world has music again, and she decides then and there that whatever it is that she and Lucas share is her favorite kind of duet. The most effortless sort of beauty there could possibly be.

Amazingly, he also seems to give back her ability to form words. Because all the sudden they’re popping into her head, forming phrases and rhymes and promising rhythm. Lyrics, born out of her connection with him and dying to be put on paper.

“It’s always been you,” she repeats against his lips when they break apart, turning the phrase over in her mind to make sure it’s right. Lucas presses their foreheads together and kisses her again, evidently unconcerned with whether her statement is a returned sentiment or just a passing thought. But now the idea is taking root, and she knows it’s not going to leave her alone. “That’s it.”

“What?” he asks, pulling back and checking to make sure she’s okay. She allows him to brush the hair out of her face, the delightfully new sensation of his fingers against her skin mixing with the all too familiar buzz of a song coming to light.

She waits a second longer before locking eyes with him, gripping his arm and hoping the words don’t come out lackluster when she speaks them into existence. “Don’t know how to tell you… the notepad. Get the notepad!”

Lucas blinks, surprised at her sudden intensity but obviously not questioning it. He drops to a crouch and frantically retrieves the pen and pad from the hardwood, rising back to his full height and handing it to her. She gratefully takes the pen from him after he uncaps it, curling the cap in his fingers and watching her work.

Riley scribbles urgently, tingling with ideas and the thrill of breaking their most difficult writer’s block. “ _Don’t know how to tell you that it’s always been you_ …”

“ _Didn’t come from nowhere,”_ Lucas adds, catching up with her mentally. He chews his thumbnail, searching for the rest of the line. “ _Or from out of the blue.”_

She’s certain the expression that consumes his features when he’s concentrating has to be the most adorable thing that’s ever existed, but the adoration will have to wait a little longer. They’re onto something, something big, and she doesn’t want to let the inspiration slip away.

“ _Never had… never had anything that felt so—,_ ”

“ _True,”_ Lucas states confidently, filling in the blank without hesitation.

She locks eyes with him, nodding, unable to hold back the grin that blooms across her face. It seems as though Zay and Maya were right—they really are a duo unparalleled, complementing one another in such a natural fashion it’s almost like destiny.

“ _Every time,_ ” Lucas continues, glancing up to the ceiling as if the words are waiting for him there. Perhaps they are, because he throws another set out like magic. “ _Every way…_ ”

Riley speaks the final phrase, convinced of their perfection before they even leave her lips. Reveling in how true they feel when she looks into his eyes and declares it. “ _Babe, I choose you._ ”

That’s it. The clear title, the chorus, the words that she knows thousands of fans will be shouting at sold out tours and in joyful car rides with their friends and in the shower when no one else is around. It’s the first step in a brand new era, and Mad Dogs is far from over.

“I choose you,” they say in unison, absorbing the truth of it. The power it carries, between them and in the undeniable future.

Then they break into loving smiles, unable to hold back another second. Lucas wraps his arms around her and pulls her into another kiss, and for the moment she’s content to let the song take a back seat and focus solely on him. The rest is unwritten, but that’s all part of the fun. Not knowing what is going to come next, but knowing without a doubt that it’s going to be magnificent.

For everything, including them, it’s only the beginning.


End file.
